| Overview | Health and Nutrition |
State policies that promote health, education, and strong families can help the early development and school readiness of America's youngest citizens. This profile highlights Nebraska's policy choices alongside other contextual data related to the well-being of young children.
Trends1
Access to public health insurance for children remained stable between 2001 and 2006. Young children in families earning up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible for health insurance, although the parents in those families are only eligible up to 60 percent of the federal poverty level. Eligibility for child care subsidies declined from 173 percent of the federal poverty level in 2001 to 116 percent in 2006. Nebraska invested approximately $3.7 million in public prekindergarten in 2006. This is a slight increase from 2002 and serves 4 percent of 4-year-olds.
Recent Developments1
In 2006, the legislature made the state earned income tax credit refundable. The legislature also created the Early Childhood Education Endowment. The Early Childhood Education Endowment funds quality services for at-risk children from birth to age 3. The endowment is a public-private partnership that will annually generate $2 million in interest from the $40 million public Educational Lands and Trust Funds. An additional $1 million in interest will be generated from a $20 million privately-funded endowment created by the year 2011. Grants will be awarded to school districts and educational service units to partner with local agencies or programs in their communities for services for these children. Grants will be competitive and will require a match of at least 50 percent of the total program costs.
| Health and Nutrition |
Data Notes and Sources
Last Updated: October 8, 2008
Send us recent developments to update your state's profile.
- The trends and recent developments come from personal communications with state advocates, administrators, and policymakers. The following publications were also consulted:
Donna Cohen Ross, Aleya Horn, and Caryn Marks, Health Coverage for Children and Families in Medicaid and SCHIP: State Efforts Face New Hurdles: A 50-State Update on Eligibility Rules, Enrollment and Renewal Procedures, and Cost-Sharing Practices in Medicaid and SCHIP in 2008, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, January 2008 http://www.kff.org (accessed April 11, 2008).
W. Steven Barnett, Jason Hustedt, Allison Friedman, Judi Stevenson Boyd, and Pat Ainsworth, The State of Preschool 2007, National Institute for Early Education Research, 2007.
Karen Schulman and Helen Blank, State Child Care Assistance Policies 2007: Some Steps Forward, More Progress Needed, National Women's Law Center, September 2007.
National Center for Children in Poverty, Map and Track State Initiatives for Young Children and Families, 2000 Edition, 2000
National Conference of State Legislatures, Child Care and Early Education Legislation Highlights 2005, June 2006
National Conference of State Legislatures, Child Care and Early Education Legislation Highlights 2006, unpublished draft
National Governors Association, Front and Center education articles, 2006, http://www.nga.org
ZERO TO THREE, The Baby Monitor, 2006 Policy and Advocacy News Archive, http://www.zerotothree.org - State data were calculated from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (the March supplement) of the Current Population Survey from 2006, 2007, and 2008, representing information from calendar years 2005, 2006, and 2007. NCCP averaged three years of data because of small sample sizes in less populated states. The national data were calculated from the 2008 data, representing information from the previous calendar year.
- National and state data were calculated from the 2007 American Community Survey.